Entries categorized "McCain"

Grampy McCrankypants, Sen. John McCain, has a sad that the U.S. has not gone to war lately with (insert country name here) , because the man has never met a war he did not like. McCain knows nothing about foreign affairs, yet the media villagers hang on his every word as though his thoughts are worth listening to. Paul Waldman at The American Prospect dispels the media myth of John McCain in John McCain Says Ignorant, Belligerent Things; Press Swoons:

I'll admit that I know next to nothing about Ukrainian politics. And when it comes to the current crisis there, I don't have any brilliant ideas about how the United States could solve this problem, but that's partly because the United States probably can't solve this problem. My limited knowledge and lack of transformative ideas puts me on equal footing with John McCain. Yet for some reason, McCain is once again all over the news, now that the situation in Kiev[.]

What does McCain actually think we should do about Ukraine? We'll get to that in a moment. But if you had to sum up John McCain's foreign policy beliefs in a single word, that word would probably be "Grrrr!" Whatever the situation is, McCain's view is always that we should be tougher than whatever the White House is doing. This applies to both Republican and Democratic presidents. If we're already bombing somebody, McCain's answer to any challenge is that we should bomb harder. If we haven't yet commenced action but are seriously thinking about it, he thinks we should start bombing. If we're engaging in diplomacy, McCain thinks we should ditch all that talk, which is for pussies anyhow, and get "tough" with whoever it is that needs getting tough with.

That is, I promise you, the extent of the sophistication of McCain's foreign policy thinking. Despite the fact that he is regularly lauded by the reporters who have worshipped him for so long as an "expert" in foreign policy with deep "knowledge" and "experience," I have never heard him say a single thing that demonstrated any kind of understanding of any foreign country or foreign crisis beyond what you could have gleaned from watching a three-minute report on the Today show.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has scheduled a test vote on Thursday to extend long-term unemployment insurance benefits after having rejected Republican requests that they be allowed to propose a number of "poison pill" amendments to the Democratic bill. Reid sets up test vote on jobless aid:

Democrats controlling the Senate have set up a test vote on Thursday for the party’s new plan to extend unemployment benefits for people who have been out of work for more than six months.

The latest plan would extend long-term jobless benefits for three months at a cost of almost $7 billion, paid for by a tweak to pension law that Republicans call a gimmick.

Democrats don’t expect the measure to get enough GOP support to overcome a filibuster threshold of 60 votes. Democrats control the Senate with 55 votes and so far expect just three Republicans to join with them. They are Susan Collins of Maine, Dean Heller of Nevada and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

I would encourage you to call our senators, but we all know how these two losers will vote. By the way, in a real democracy without the tyranny of the minority engaging in obstruction and filibuster, this bill would have already passed the Senate.

The Arizona Republic, formerly known as The Arizona Republican, the media arm of the Republican Party establishment in Arizona (namely Senator John McCain, see the pushback to the Arizona Republican Party's crazy base censure of McCain on Sunday, Arizona GOP censure riles McCain backers), published a schizophrenic editorial opinion on Sunday extolling the Tea-Publican House "principles" on immigration reform released last week. A step to the middle:

There was a national sigh of relief when the House Republicans released their principles for immigration reform last week. Their plan creates space for genuine debate that could lead to finally reforming fatally flawed immigration policies. The biggest divide is over what to do about 11 million undocumented people. The House principles are a welcome step toward the middle.

In calling for [permanent] legal residency and citizenship [only] for young people who were brought into the country illegally as children, House Republicans have recognized what the nation has long understood: You don’t punish children for the actions of their parents.

In calling for legalization for the larger undocumented population, House Republicans have moved away from the more extremist factions of their caucus who denounce anything short of deportation as “amnesty.”

They now have to find accommodation with Democrats who denounce anything short of a path to citizenship as a sellout.

For Arizonans, the rise of the TEA Party nationally has only meant that we now have a convenient name for a strain of Republicans who have always menaced the political scene and been, to at least some extent, an obstacle to our progress as a state. Back in the 80s and early 90s, we called them Mechamites, after our not-so-esteemed Governor Evan Mecham. This particular breed was already decades old by this time, as even Arizona’s first Governor, George W.P. Hunt referred to the “standpat reactionary furies” in what we now call The East Valley as the chief obstacle to his progressive agenda.

These days, there is little question that this crowd is driving the Republican agenda, and they made a spectacularly successful effort to embarrass us as a state this week. The thing that got most of the attention was a resolution by the Arizona Republican Party condemning Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) for attempting to be an effective legislator. The author of the resolution, a failed candidate for legislature and noticeably less than telegenic fellow, stumbled through an interview with Chris Matthews, refusing to admit that the President was lawfully elected and lecturing the former chief of staff to House Speaker Tip O’Neill about Ronald Reagan. Apparently he was unaware that Matthews worked with and personally knew President Reagan, and if you wait long enough, he will even tell you about the book he wrote about him.

All of this begs the question: given that the Republican Party runs the state, shouldn’t they be able to find a more effective spokesman than this guy?

What got a little less attention was a resolution calling for the repeal of the 17th Amendment, the 1913 revision to the United States Constitution that calls for the direct election of Senators rather than having them elected by the state legislatures. Stephen Lemons at the New Times was one of the few reporters who gave this more than passing mention, but he failed to give it the proper context.

This has been some week in the Arizona GOP's war on democracy, hasn't it?

On Thursday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman "Fast Eddie" Farnsworth's (R-Gilbert) bill, HB 2196 (.pdf), to repeal the GOP Voter Suppression Act, HB 2305, and to deny the citizens of Arizona their constitutional right to vote on a citizens referred referendum, was pulled after angry citizens and the media showed up at the hearing. More than 100,000 Arizonans signed the petitions for a "citizens veto" of the GOP Voter Suppression Act, exercising their constitutional right under the Arizona Constitution to vote to veto the legislature's anti-democratic measure. No matter.

The Arizona GOP's plan is to repeal HB 2305, and to pass the separate provisions for voter suppression in the bill as separate bills to make another citizens referendum virtually impossible, and to get their way by "skullduggery," as Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts called it. Are legislators plotting end run around voters in election-law referendum?" "Fast Eddie" promises to bring his bill back up for a hearing, possibly as early as this week.

On Friday, the Arizona GOP was in U.S. District Court arguing to a three judge panel of federal judges that you, the voters of Arizona, by enacting a citizens referred initiative to create the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC), Prop. 106 (2000), violated their federal constitutional right to gerrymander congressional districts in favor of GOP candidates. (Where are the Neo-Confederate "states' rights" federal "guvmint" haters now?) As I explained, their legal argument is entirely without merit. Arizona Legislature v. the AIRC court hearing this Friday. This is one of those frivolous "junk lawsuits" you hear about.

"If it's Sunday, It's John McCain." The Sunday morning bobbleheads are his base. No one else gives a damn.

The man who could not remember if he owns 8, no wait is it 9, no 10 homes, was on TeaNN (formerly CNN) on Sunday to explain why someone who made his fortune the old-fashioned way -- he married it -- voted against extending long-term unemployment benefits to the unemployed and is opposed to raising the minimum wage: Obama derangement syndrome.

Arizona's angry old man does not feel empathy and compassion for the less fortunate. Screw "Christian values" -- Fuck em! It's all about the sanctity of Senate procedures that only the Beltway media clutches their pearls over.

If Sen. John McCain really wants to help the Republicans with their "messaging" on unemployment benefits and minimum wage, he might want to start by staying off the air.

Here's Grandpa McGrumpy telling CNN's Candy Crowley that the real problem is not their cruel stance on unemployment benefits or raising the minimum wage, it's that they haven't done enough carping about that mean old Harry Reid stopping them from being able to grind the Senate to a halt with poison pills and adding an unlimited number of amendments to bills so they never see the light of day.

I read that Arizona's angry old man, John McCain, still embittered by his humiliating landslide defeat to Barack Obama in 2008, has decided to introduce a bill to repeal Obamacare and replace it with his own set of reforms (well, not really his reforms but a companion bill to Rep. Tom Price's bill in the House.) McCain Introduces Obamacare Repeal And Replacement Legislation.

President Senator John McCain has unveiled his plan for replacing Obamacare ... and its centerpiece is the very same plan he ran on and lost with in 2008.

Aside from repealing Obamacare, the centerpieces of McCain's plan would be (a) to replace current tax deductions for employer-provided health insurance with a one-size-fits-all health care tax credit of $5,000 for families and $2,500 for individuals and (b) to allow Americans to purchase insurance from any state in the country, whether or not they live in that state. McCain would also provide subsidies to states to cover people who can't otherwise get coverage.

President Barack Obama, along wth former presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, were among almost a hundred world leaders and dignitaries from around the globe who paid tribute to Nelson Mandela today in a memorial service in South Africa.

The conservative media entertainment complex, which has alternatively been trashing Nelson Mandela since his death because Ronaldus Magnus and Dick Cheney once branded him a terrorist, or trashing conservative politicians who offered words of praise for Mandela following his death, or engaging in revisionist history as they are wont to do, had something else they wanted to focus on today: a reception line. Obama greets world leaders. And what, pray tell, got the clowns of conservative media all worked up in feigned outrage?

Obama shook hands with world leaders, including Cuba's President Raul Castro. Oh Noes!

In blocking Judge Robert L. Wilkins’s nomination on Monday, Senate Tea-Publicans denied President Obama his third pick in recent weeks to fill one of the vacancies on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, second in importance to the U.S. Supreme Court. Another Obama Court Nominee Blocked by G.O.P.:

Senate Republicans on Monday blocked President Obama’s third consecutive nominee to the country’s most powerful and prestigious appeals court and insisted they would not back down, inflaming a bitter debate over a president’s right to shape the judiciary.

By a vote of 53 to 38, the Senate failed to break a filibuster of Robert L. Wilkins, a federal judge who was nominated to fill one of three vacancies on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, falling seven votes short of the 60 needed. Two Republicans — Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine — voted with the Democrats.

The impasse over Mr. Wilkins followed Republican blockades of two other candidates for the court since Oct. 31. Unlike previous fights over judicial nominees, the dispute is not as much about the judges’ individual political leanings as it is about the overall ideological makeup of the court. Republicans have raised few objections to the three candidates’ qualifications or legal positions.

Rather, Republicans are seeking to prevent Mr. Obama from filling any of the three existing vacancies on the 11-seat court, fearing that he will alter its conservative tilt. The court has immense political importance because it often rules on questions involving White House and federal agency policy.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday set up the the final series of votes for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act — which prohibits employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity — culminating in a vote final passage on Thursday afternoon if the bill passes a key, 60-vote threshold procedural test in the morning.

Senate passage of ENDA seemed more and more likely Wednesday after the Senate unanimously accepted an amendment by Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) protecting religious groups exempted under the legislation from government retaliation. That amendment likely secured the vote of several other Republicans pushing for that language, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

[“Asked whether he would vote for the bill, Sen. John McCain
(R., Ariz.) said ‘yes,’ then added
in a brief interview, ‘If we get the amendments worked out,’” according
to an early morning AP report:

McCain was a co-sponsor of the Portman-Ayotte amendment.
The Senate plans to vote Thursday on an amendment by Sen. Pat Toomey
(R., Pa.) to expand the number of groups that are covered under the
religious exemption.]

Cindy McCain who, unlike her angry old man husband, Sen. John McCain, has been a strong and vocal supporter of equal rights for women and gays, was asked to sign a petition this past week in support of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that is awaiting action in Congress. Cindy McCain petitions husband to back gay rights bill:

Call it a bold canvassing move that paid off: An organizer for the Human Rights Campaign
asked Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) wife Cindy to sign a postcard
Thursday urging the senator to back legislation barring workplace
discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

She signed it.

The senator has never supported the Employment Non-Discrimination Act,
which passed a Senate committee in July and could come to the floor for
a vote soon. A bipartisan coalition has dispatched field organizers in
seven states across the country to mobilize constituents on behalf of
the bill, and HRC has collected "tens of thousands of postcards" as part
of the effort, according to HRC spokesman Michael Cole-Schwartz.

Arizona is a key state, since activists are targeting both McCain and
his fellow Republican Sen. Jeff Flake; McCain has opposed the bill in
the past, while Flake has not voted on the issue since taking office in
January.

Sen. John McCain said Tuesday he is “very seriously considering” running for a sixth term in 2016.

McCain, a veteran Arizona Republican and the 2008 GOP presidential
nominee, first made the announcement in an interview on Phoenix radio
station KFYI-AM (550) and later reiterated his comments to reporters
after a constituent event.

McCain, who would turn 80 by Election Day 2016, previously had been
saying he had not decided whether to retire. His Tuesday remarks appear
to reflect an evolution in his thinking about a possible re-election
campaign.

McCain reiterated that he still has a year or so to make a final decision about running again.

“I am very seriously considering it, and I don’t see any reason why I
shouldn’t,” McCain said after an afternoon town-hall-style meeting in
Phoenix.

I was going to write a snarky piece which said that Senator John
McCain's takedown of Ted Cruz, while effective, was nowhere nearly as
awesome as what his predecessor, Senator Henry Fountain Ashurst, did to
Huey Long in 1935, but my brother beat me to it in the Tucson Sentinel.

Ashurst,
a Shakespeare-quoting cowboy turned lawyer, was elected to the Territorial
House of Representatives in 1897 where he became Speaker at the age of
23, the youngest legislative leader in Arizona's history. There, the Coconino County Democrat was
credited with the legislation that created the normal school that
eventually became Northern Arizona University.

Upon statehood,
Ashurst was one of Arizona's two new United States Senators. While never
known as a particularly effective legislator, his unparalleled skill as
an orator made him well loved in the halls of Congress and the ideal
man to put the self-aggrandizing Senator from Louisiana in his place.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, Ted "Calgary" Cruz "struts and frets his hours upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." - Macbeth Act 5, scene 5, 19–28. After 21 hours, Sen. Cruz ends anti-Obamacare speech.

Calgary accomplished nothing but his own self-aggrandizement among the GOP crazy base, and complicating matters for the GOP House leadership, whom he will set up to blame for his own hair-brained scheme.

The Tea Party Cruz-missile crashed and burned today, failing to stop the U.S. Senate from moving forward on a Continuing Resolution to keep the government open and funding "ObamaCare." Senate votes to proceed with spending bill:

The Senate moved Wednesday to take up a House-passed temporary
spending bill that defunds President Obama’s health-care law, despite
Sen. Ted Cruz’s more than 21-hour attempt to delay the legislation.

Shortly after 1 p.m., the funding bill passed its first
procedural hurdle in the Senate, which voted unanimously to invoke
cloture on a motion to proceed on the House’s continuing resolution. The
Senate now is scheduled to hold up to 30 hours of debate on the funding
bill.

[Update: The vote was 100 to 0. Calgary voted
for cloture after saying he'd vote against cloture and urging his
colleagues to do the same. What a fraud!]

* * *

The Senate then essentially choked off the first filibuster hurdle on
its own version of the funding bill, marking the first step toward
allowing Democrats to include funding for the health-care law that had
previously been stripped out by the House.

When he is not hyperventilating for a war, Sen. John McCain has occaisonal moments of lucidity when he actually makes sense. The scary part is, he is one of the few Tea-Publicans making sense right now when it comes to their economic terrorist hostage demands to "defund 'ObamaCare' or we will kill the economy!" In a CNN interview this week, McCain compared this to "a suicide note." McCain to House Republicans: Don't shut down government:

Sen. John McCain said Washington is "in for some
very serious problems" and called on his colleagues in the GOP to tone
down the warnings of a government shutdown.
"Republicans ought to understand if we shut down the government,
Congress always gets blamed–rightly or wrongly–Congress gets blamed,"
the Arizona Republican said Monday on CNN's "New Day." "We've seen the movie before. It's just some of them weren't around at the time; I was."

* * *

McCain said there needs to be a "willingness to negotiate" on both
sides of the aisle " because we all know we're not going to cut off
social security checks" and payments to those in the military fighting
overseas. "And for us to say you've got to repeal Obamacare in order to
get that done, as Charles Krauthammer [does], that's a suicide note."

A couple of years ago, after the United States and its allies used
military force to help remove the Gadhafi's government from Libya, Sens.
John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) issued one of my
favorite Republican press releases ever. The two senators, who had
eagerly spent months touting U.S. military action in Libya, issued a joint statement commending the "British, French, and other allies, as well as our Arab partners, especially Qatar and the UAE."

McCain
and Graham eventually said Americans can be "proud of the role our
country" played, but they nevertheless condemned the Obama
administration's "failure" to act in Libya the way the GOP senators
preferred.

It was striking at the time for its bitterness -- the
United States had achieved its strategic goals, but instead of
celebrating or applauding Obama's success, Republicans pouted and
whined.

It's funny how history sometimes repeats itself. Over the
course of six days, the Obama administration pushed Syria into the
chemical weapons convention, helped create a diplomatic framework that
will hopefully rid Syria of its stockpiles, successfully pushed Russia
into a commitment to help disarm its own ally, quickly won support from
the United Nations and our allies, and did all of this without firing a
shot.

Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake will participate in "A Converstation on Immigration" hosted by The Arizona Republic, News 12 and USA Today on Tuesday, August 27, at the Mesa Arts Center’s Piper Theater from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. The event live-streams at azcentral.com
on Aug. 27 and will be taped for later broadcast on Channel 12. Special event: A conversation on immigration, border security:

On Tuesday, come to azcentral.com for an exclusive, behind-the-scenes
look at immigration, border security and its impact on Arizona.

"A Converstation on Immigration" with Republican Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake will
include segments on jobs, border security, the shadow culture of
immigration and its effect on the Arizona economy.

This special live event is sponsored by The Arizona Republic, 12 News, azcentral.com and USA Today.

Coverage begins at 9 a.m.; the town hall starts at 10 a.m.

To participate in or follow the discussion live on Twitter, use the hashtag #azbordertalk and visit live.azcentral.com.

The new "compromise caucus" of GOP Senators who reached an agreement with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid a couple of weeks ago to end the Senate filibusters of executive department nominees has withstood its toughest test: President Obama's nominees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which Republicans have been trying to neuter for years.

As Vice President Joe Biden would say, "This is a big effin' deal!" It means there may now be a new governing majority in the Senate. The Septegenarian Ninja Turtle Mitch McConnell no longer has an iron grip on the Senate for his scorched earth policy of total obstruction.

As part of the deal
struck earlier this month by Senate Republicans and Democrats to stave
off the “nuclear” option, the Senate on Tuesday approved all five
pending nominees to theNational Labor Relations Board.

The latest Tea-Publican economic terrorist threat is the “kill Obamacare or else”
demand: the GOP will refuse to continue to fund the government and
force a governnment shutdown in a last-ditch attempt to coerce Democrats
into surrender to their 39 votes (and counting) to kill "ObamaCare." The House will take its 40th repeal vote next week.

The Tea-Publican Party is an anti-government party. They are not interested in sound government policy, they are an insurrection bent on destroying government.

The Tea-Publicans' favorite economic terrorism tactic is to manufacture a crisis to take the country hostage and threaten to kill the hostage unless their extortionary demands are met. They have done this time and time again, without apparent consequence to them for their seditious conduct. The corporate "lamestream media" dismisses insurrection and sedition against the government of the United States as "The new normal" and simply a negotiating tactic. It is not. It is economic terrorism and is not to be tolerated.

The plain truth here is pretty obvious: Republicans love the idea of
extorting concessions in exchange for agreeing to a debt limit hike, and
are determined to do it even when they don’t actually have any real
policy demands. It’s just extortion for extortion’s sake.

The latest Tea-Publican terrorism threat is the “kill Obamacare or else” demand: the GOP will refuse to continue to fund the government and force a governnment shutdown in a last-ditch attempt to coerce Democrats into surrender to their 39 votes (and counting) to kill "ObamaCare."

Sen. John McCain, Ariz., a prominent Republican who's been known to
break ranks with fellow members of the GOP at times, urged state
legislatures to review Stand Your Ground laws in the wake of the
Zimmerman trial, which became a national flashpoint for race relations
in America.

"I can also see that Stand Your Ground laws may be
something that needs to be reviewed by the Florida legislature or any
other legislature that has passed such legislation," McCain said on
CNN.

Asked whether his home state legislature should consider revising its own similar law, McCain said yes.

"I
think that, yes, I do, and I'm confident that the members of the
Arizona legislature will because it is a very controversial
legislation," he said.

Enacted during the Great Depression, the Glass-Steagall Act prevented
commercial deposit banks, which are insured by taxpayer money through
the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC), from engaging in insurance
and risky investment activities. These restrictions were repealed in
1999. The new bill would reinstate and update the separation between
commercial and investment banking, giving financial conglomerates a
five-year transitional period to split up their businesses to come into
adherence with the firewall.

“Banks should be boring,” Warren argued in her initial public push for the bill,
her first major banking measure in the Senate. The bill is more than a
mere a reinstatement of the original 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, however.
It would also bar commercial banks from some of the newer, more complex
practices that they became infamous for in the wake of the recession,
including trading complex derivatives and swaps or engaging in hedge
fund and private equity activities. Warren explained in a conference
call with reporters on Thursday that the new bill also seeks to close
loopholes created by regulators’ interpretation of the original bill in
the 1980s and 90s preceding its repeal.

Senator John McCain is a chameleon who changes his positions to the ever-changing political landscape. His only principle and conviction is his own political survival.

Senator "comprehensive immigration reform" in 2007 said he would vote against his own bill when he ran for president in 2008. By 2010 when he ran for reelection to the U.S. Senate, he was Senator "just complete the danged fence" (video below the fold).

[A]n amendment from Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) would have prevented the
government from granting provisional immigrant status until the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has built 350 miles of Southern
border fencing. Another 350 miles of fencing would have to be
constructed before those with provisional legal status could apply for a
green card.

I posted about this bit of American history years ago which has apparently disappeared down the "memory hole":

John McCain was a patron of Ahmad Chalabi, the exiled leader of the
Iraqi National Congress (and a fugitive from justice in Europe) whom
Neoconservatives like McCain supported and thereby lent his
credibility. Chalabi and his protege "Curveball" provided U.S.
intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense with falsified
information that the Neoconservatives relied upon to justify the
invasion of Iraq.

Part 1 of the investigative report by Mark G. Levey explored"McCain's Role in the WMD Cover-up, John McCain and Charlie Black's War, How a senator and a lobbyist led the deception campaign that tricked the U.S." Read the full report here Election Fraud News & The Money party.

Our boy John McCain is back at it again, this time supporting questionable characters in the Syrian opposition forces with links to al Qaida. McCain's motto: "Shoot first, ask questions later. Damn the consequences."

A State Department
official confirmed
that the department was aware of the trip, and in an interview with CNN's Anderson
Cooper, McCain repeatedly expressed his gratitude to the State
Department, as well as to the rebel groups, for providing his security.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that Syrian rebels "do not understand why
the U.S. won't help them" during an appearance Wednesday night on CNN's
"Anderson Cooper 360."

May 23, 2013

Washington, D.C. ­–
U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) released the following statement on
President Obama’s speech on terrorism today at the National Defense
University in Washington, DC:

“There
is much that I support in President Obama's speech today. Though I
continue to have questions and concerns about specific details of how he
plans to achieve the goals he laid out today, I believe there is common
ground to work with the President to advance both our counterterrorism
objectives and our highest values as a nation of laws.

“I
support the President’s plan to consolidate the use of armed drones in
the Department of Defense. That is the appropriate department of our
government to conduct military operations against our enemies. Assigning
this role to the Department would enable our other government agencies
to focus their precious time and resources on furthering their own
essential core missions.

“I
also support the President’s reaffirmation of the goal of closing the
detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. That is a goal I have long
shared. More than four years ago, the President said he would close
Guantanamo but did not put forward a concrete plan to do so. I look
forward to seeing the specifics of the plan the President outlined
today.

“As
the President suggested, closing Guantanamo will require bringing some
detainees inside the United States to stand trial in civilian courts or
military commissions, as appropriate. It will also require transferring
other detainees back to their home countries or to other foreign
locations in a way that limits the risk of recidivism as much as
possible. And, for those detainees who unfortunately cannot be brought
to trial but who are too dangerous to release, closing Guantanamo will
require those individuals to be held indefinitely in the United States.
This long-term detention should include periodic review and additional
due process safeguards. I encourage the President to work with Congress
on what additional authorities may be needed to establish a legal
framework to meet this goal that is consistent with our national
security and principles of justice.

It looks like Arizona's angry old man Sen. McNasty, John McCain, has had enough of those Tea Party punks hanging out on his lawn. For the second day in a row, McCain took to the well of the Senate to criticize a Tea Party senator as too effin' ignorant to be in the Senate. This time it was Tea Party darlin' Mike Lee (R-UT).

In a key moment on the Senate floor this morning, John McCain came
very close to stating outright that Tea Party Republican Senators are in
the grip of what some of us have been describing as a kind of ”post policy nihilism”
that has taken over the GOP. This should be a real clarifying moment:
Tea Party Senators have pushed their disregard for basic governing norms
so far that even fellow Republicans are calling them out for it.

A group of Republican senators continued to fire away Tuesday at the
Obama administration for its failure to appoint a special counsel to
investigate leaks of classified information.

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, once again led the charge at a Capitol
Hill news conference, criticizing Attorney General Eric Holder for his
decision to appoint two Justice Department prosecutors to investigate
the recent leaks to the media.

"To think that two people appointed prosecutors from Mr. Holder's
office, overseen by Mr. Holder, is also offensive," McCain said. "We
need a special counsel. We need someone who the American people can
trust and we need to stop the leaks that are endangering the lives of
those men and women who are serving our country."

The worst purveyors of this "Benghazi! Benghazi!!Benghazi!!!" faux
scandal have been the new Three Stooges, Sens. John McCain, his puppet
boy Little Lindsey Graham, and Kelly Ayotte as "Shemp." They have
perpetrated a fraud for purely partisan political retaliation. They
besmirched the reputation of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, who has been
vindicated by the emails released this week.

The new Three Stooges owe Susan Rice and the American people an
apology. They have demonstrated their utter lack of character and
judgment to serve in the U.S. Senate. If they had any honor, they would
submit their resignations from the U.S. Senate for their indefensible
actions.

When Time's Michael Crowley reported this week on what we
learned from the disclosure of internal administration emails on
Benghazi, it noted three larger takeaways, one of which was "Susan Rice got hosed."

Major Garrett, who used to work for FAUX News Fraudcasting for years, left the GOPropaganda machine to go to work for CBS News. Last night on CBS Evening News, Major Garrett put a definitive end to the conservative media entertainment complex cult's "Benghazi! Benghazi!!Benghazi!!!" faux scandal, with this report (transcript by) Josh Marshall: CBS Calls Out GOP For Doctoring Benghazi Emails:

MAJOR GARRETT: Scott, Republicans have claimed that the State Department under Hillary Clinton was trying to protect itself from criticism. The White House released the real e-mails late yesterday and here’s what we found when we compared them to the quotes that had been provided by Republicans. One e-mail was written by Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes. On Friday, Republicans leaked what they said was a quote from Rhodes. “We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation.” But it turns out, in the actual e-mail Rhodes did not mention the State Department. It read “We need to resolve this in a way that respects all the relevant equities, particularly the investigation.” Republicans also provided what they said was a quote from an e-mail written by State Department Spokesman Victoria Nuland. The Republican version notes Nuland discussing: “The penultimate point is a paragraph talking about all the previous warnings provided by the Agency (CIA) about al-Qaeda’s presence and activities of al-Qaeda.” The actual e-mail from Nuland says: the “…penultimate point could be abused by Members to beat the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings…” The C.I.A. agreed with the concerns raised by the State Department and revised the talking points to make them less specific than the C.I.A.’s original version, eliminating references to al-Qaeda and affiliates and earlier security warnings. There is no evidence, Scott, the White House orchestrated these changes.

Yesterday I called the Tucson office of Senator Jeff Flake. I told the
staffer, I wanted to let y’all know that even though it’s
been almost four weeks, people still remember that Senator Flake
filibustered the most basic gun reform bill. She immediately interrupted me,
saying:

"I’d just like to clarify one point: He did vote for cloture."

I said, Look, on the vote that mattered, Senator
Flake supported the filibuster. Again she interrupted:

"I’d just like to clarify one point: He did vote for cloture."

I said, Stop lying to me. That’s not a clarification,
that’s a deception. I am aware that there were preliminary votes
where he did not bother to filibuster, and I am aware he promised a
group of Sandy Hook
survivors that he would not filibuster ... but on April 17th, on the
last vote the Senate took, on the vote that derailed the effort, he
filibustered. It’s a matter of public record. He didn’t just vote against it. He didn’t just vote
to water it down. He blocked it from coming up for a majority vote.
Background checks are supported by more than 90% of the citizens.
Without the filibuster, the bill would have passed. Senator
McCain voted one
way, and Senator Flake voted the other way. He even talked about it
on his facebook
page ... so why do you object when I say the same thing?

"But he did vote for cloture."

I said, Look, lady, you must think the voters are really
stupid. You must think I’m too stupid to remember how things went
down ... but I do remember, and I’m going to make sure all my friends
remember. At first I thought Jeff Flake was incompetent, doing
ridiculous things by accident. Now it’s obvious y’all know exactly
what you’re doing. It’s selfish, it’s corrupt, it’s evil, and it’s
shameful. He’s been in office less than a year, but he’s already
managed to become the #1 most unpopular member in the US Senate. That’s not easy to do,
but he earned it.

Oh dear lord, the new Three Stooges (John McCain, his puppet boy Little Lindsey Graham, and Kelly Ayotte as "Shemp") are back at it again today. It appears that the "Benghazi! Benghazi!!Benghazi!!!" faux scandal is really just about semantics, or diction. "You didn't say the magic words!"

Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) on Monday issued a statement dismissing President Barack Obama's insistence that he attributed the deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya to terrorism.

Speaking in the Rose Garden the day following the Sept. 11, 2012
attack that left four Americans dead in Benghazi, Obama made reference
to "acts of terror" — a "generic reference," as the three Republican
senators put it. McCain, Graham and Ayotte cited subsequent interviews
that Obama gave in which he stopped short of describing the attack as
terrorism. The three senators also called for the creation of a Joint
Select Committee " to resolve these contradictions and answer the many
other unanswered questions about this tragedy."

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) on Monday also pushed back
Obama's characterization of the attack, arguing during an appearance on
Fox News that "an act of terror is different than a terrorist attack."

Once again, "If it's Sunday, it's John McCain" on the Sunday morning bobble-head shows. The Beltway media are his political base, and nothing is more irresponsible.

In his 30 years in Washington, never has one man been so wrong about so many subjects as John McCain. In fact, John McCain is the perfect cipher. If you want to know what you should do, just ask John McCain what he thinks and then do exactly the opposite. You can't go wrong.

So this past Sunday, the leader of the new Three Stooges (McCain stars with his puppet boy Little Lindsey Graham and, replacing Joe Lieberman, Kelly Ayotte as "Shemp") who has been pushing the "Benghazi! Benghazi!!Benghazi!!!" faux scandal for months, went on ABC's "This Week" for an interview with Martha Raddatz, and accused the White House of a "cover-up." "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." John McCain Goes Wacko Bird and Accuses Hillary Clinton of Benghazi Cover Up:

MCCAIN: I’d call it a cover-up. I — I would call it a cover-up in the
extent that there was willful removal of information, which was
obvious. It was obvious. Mr. Hicks said in his testimony, his jaw
dropped when he saw Susan Rice do that — I was on — I was on another
Sunday morning show after Susan Rice, my jaw dropped. I said, look
people don’t bring rocket-propelled grenades and mortars to spontaneous
demonstrations.

In a letter sent to
lawmakers before Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel's announcement, the White House said that
intelligence analysts have concluded "with varying degrees of confidence
that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in
Syria, specifically the chemical agent sarin."

The White House cautioned
that the "chain of custody" of the chemicals was not clear and that
intelligence analysts could not confirm the circumstances under which
the sarin was used, including the role of Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad's regime.

But, the letter said, "we do believe that any use of chemical weapons in
Syria would very likely have originated with the Assad regime."

Note the caution and need for further investigation of the evidence in this statement. This is the lesson learned from the fabrication of intelligence and lies told to falsely lead this country into an unnecessary war in Iraq. Contrast this restraint with Neocon war monger Sen. John McCain, who said the evidence is good enough for him, let's intervene in Syria yesterday:

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, urged the administration to work for the establishment of a safe zone for Syrian rebels.

"Everything that the
non-interventionists said would happen in Syria if we intervened has
happened," he said. "The jihadists are on the ascendency, there is
chemical weapons being used, the massacres continue.

Remember just a few weeks ago when the right-wing was all in a tizzy about the village idiot Aqua Buddha, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), and his filibuster of the nomination of John Brennan for CIA Director over the use of drones in the U.S.? There was a lot of highfalutin talk from these right-wingers about the constitutional rights of American citizens on American soil -- when they thought they were talking about far-right fringe groups like white supremacists, Christian nationalists, the militia movement, and gun worshipers and fetishists.

Then came the Boston Marathon bombing.

The 19-year old Boston Bomber suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, is a naturalized American citizen. He possesses the same constitutional rights as any natural born American citizen. A naturalized American citizen does not lose his constitutional rights any more than a natural born American citizen who is a terrorist, Timothy McVeigh for example, loses his constitutional rights.

But the "war on terror" twins, Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, are once again seeking to redefine the constitutional rights of American citizens under the rubric of their Neocon "war on terror." They would declare criminal actions an "act of war" for convenience sake and to declare American citizens on American soil an "enemy combatant" in order to deprive American citizens of their constitutional rights.

Americans have more to fear from the "war on terror" twins, Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, than any wingnut conspiracy theory about President Obama using drones to kill American citizens on American soil. This pair of assholes actually wrote their bastardization of the Constitution into law, and the U.S. Supreme Court took a pass on its constitutionality. This threat is genuine.

Boston rejoiced after news of the capture of the Marathon bomber. It reminded me of the celebration after their beloved Red Sox won the 2004 World Series and ended the curse of the Bambino after 86 years. It's famously been said that "Boston cares about three things: sports, politics and revenge." These terrorists picked the wrong friggin' city! Video below the fold.

Kentucky Sen. Rand
Paul’s threat to filibuster any new gun restrictions is gathering steam,
as a dozen of his Republican colleagues have now signed onto his plan.

The Kentucky Republican and Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee
(R-Utah) first wrote to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid late last
month to warn him of their intention to try to tie up the Senate if, as
planned, Reid moved forward with legislation that would expand
background checks and attempt to crack down on interstate gun
trafficking.

* * *

In addition to Paul, Lee, Cruz, Rubio and Moran, the Republican who have signed the second letter are Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, Jim Risch and Mike Crapo of Idaho, Dan Coats of Indiana and Pat Roberts of Kansas.

“We will oppose the motion to proceed on any legislation that will serve as a vehicle for any additional gun restrictions,” they write.

We can never be certain which iteration of Sen. John McCain will appear on any given day, but the sycophant McMedia's favorite "maverick" from back in 2000 supported closing the private seller gun show loophole. Maybe with some regressive memory therapy, that John McCain could reappear again. Greg Sargent writes, Flashback: John McCain’s pro-gun control past:

One of the key GOP Senators that Dems are quietly trying to win the support of on expanded background checks is John McCain.

* * *

McCain previously supported closing the private seller loophole — so much so that he actually cut ads in support of the idea, claiming: “With rights come responsibilities.”

The ad shows that this is a position that even conservative
Republicans should theoretically have no ideological difficulties
embracing.

In the October 2000 ad, McCain — a reliable ally of the NRA and
decorated war veteran who had gained national prominence with his failed
insurgent presidential candidacy that year — suggested closing the
private seller loophole would significantly reduce gun violence.

The gated country club communities of old white people occurs on a larger scale as well, the gerrymandered "GOP ghettos" of old white people in congressional districts. The New York Times' Charles Blow has an interesting commentary on this demographic problem. The G.O.P.’s Diversity Deserts:

Just a week ago, the Republicans issued their much-ballyhooed “autopsy”
on why they lost the presidential election last year and how they might
remedy their problems.

They concluded that their principles were fine; the problem was how they
presented communicated those principles. Their witless wisdom is simply to tone down
their rhetoric. They want to turn Teddy Roosevelt’s famous saying on
its side: Talk softly but carry a big stigma.

The establishment Republicans’ push for a softer tone, however, is pure
political scheming and has nothing to do with what most Republicans seem
to fundamentally believe.

And many rank-and-file Republicans are adopting this two-faced tactic. A Pew Research Center report
issued Thursday found that although most Republicans say that “illegal
immigrants” should be allowed to stay in this country legally, most also
believe that immigrants are a burden because they take jobs and health
care, and they threaten American values.

I mock the advertising lede for Meet The Press Gregory, where Sen. John McCain has his own green room. McCain is mockingly known as "Senator Sunday." In fact, he is appearing on FAUX News Sunday this weekend (while his puppet boy, Little Lindsey Graham, is over at Face The Nation Schieffer). UPDATE: This was an inaccurate list... don't worry, he'll be back.

McCain has always been a media whore -- the media villagers are his only political base. He would not exist today without the symbiotic relationship between him and the Beltway media villagers who adore him and still believe that he has something relevant to say.

Chuck Hagel’s bid to become the next defense secretary cleared a
major hurdle Tuesday, beating back a Republican effort to block his
nomination almost two weeks after GOP senators launched a filibuster.

On a 71 to 27 vote, easily clearing the 60-vote threshold, the
former Republican senator is poised for confirmation later Tuesday
afternoon, overcoming Republican objections to his views on Middle East
security.

Eighteen Republicans supported moving to a final vote, joining 53
Democrats. Some of the Republicans who supported ending the Hagel
filibuster — including his chief opponents, Sens. John S. McCain
(R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) — are expected to oppose him on
the final vote, which will only require a simple majority for his
confirmation.

Senator McNasty, John McCain, is only relevant to his political base -- the Beltway media. No one else gives a damn what Arizona's angry old man has to say.

This is why i despise the Beltway media: "If it's Sunday, it's John McCain." This Sunday was Meet The Press Gregory, where McCain has his own green room. The Neocon war monger Senator McNasty was engaging in "Benghazi Fever" to give political cover to his puppet boy, Little Lindsey Graham, from a Tea Party challenge for reelection. Politico’s David Rogers reports today why John McCain has so decisively turned against Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense, and confirms that it’s all about Lindsey!

Looking back at the tragic and deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in
Benghazi last fall, we know quite a bit about what happened. We also
know, thanks to an independent investigation, that "Republican charges
of a cover-up" were "pure fiction."

But as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) argued yesterday, he can't be bothered with facts -- he has a partisan vendetta to pursue.

[Iit was disconcerting to watch this Neocon war monger demand that his
former senate colleague Chuck Hagel genuflect before him and to praise
"Senator Surge" as a demigod (his media sycophants were unavailable?)
Chuck Hagel refused, insisting that Iraq was "the most dangerous foreign
policy decision since Vietnam." Good for him. Chuck Hagel is right, and
John McCain is wrong.

Sen. "McNasty" is still embittered that his old friend, Chuck Hagel, who endorsed him for president in 2000, later endorsed Barack Obama for president in 2008. Hagel was also highly critical of the Iraq war and the "surge" for which McCain was a principal cheerleader. This is a personal vendetta by Sen. McNasty against Hagel.

The nativist and racist base of the GOP that is anti-immigrant and opposed to any immigration reforms that would create a pathway to citizenship has settled upon asymmetrical opposition: it will engage in gay bashing to kill any immigration reform legislation. "We're not against immigrants based upon their nationality or race -- but no gays!"

This is a strategy to divide the religious community between those who support humane treatment for immigrants, and those who are fundamentally opposed to marriage equality based upon religious doctrine. These are often one and the same groups, e.g., the Catholic Church, so this asymmetrical strategy forces religious groups to choose between competing values.

Tea-Publicans are on the wrong side of public polling on both issues with majorities of Americans favoring both marriage equality and immigration reforms with a pathway to citizenship.

It remains to be seen whether the U.S. Supreme Court will derail this asymmetrical opposition with a landmark decision on marriage equality this year before the immigration reforms come up for a final vote in Congress.

But the measure has inspired fierce pushback from congressional
Republicans and some religious groups, who say it could sink hopes for a
comprehensive agreement aimed at providing a path to citizenship for 11
million undocumented immigrants.

Neocon war monger Sen. John McCain is one of the architects of the Iraq war. He was the Washington, D.C. patron of Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress, and was advocating for war with Iraq as early as the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, advocated for by his friends at the Neocon Project for the New American Century. Chalabi and the INC fabricated the intelligence that the Bush-Cheney regime used to justify the unnecessary war in Iraq, at a substantial loss of American lives and treasure, as well as the substantial loss of Iraqi lives. John McCain has blood on his hands for which he should be held to account, but he never will, because the media is "his base" and always treats him as a demigod.

If it were up to John McCain, there would still be more than 160,000 American combat troops in Iraq, and more than 140,000 combat troops in Afghanistan -- and their deployment would be permanent. Recall that McCain tried to instigate a war on the side of Georgia against Russia during his 2008 campaign. He would have ordered U.S. combat troops into Libya and Syria, and to any other hot spot in the world. He is a militarist who believes in PNAC's Pax Americana Empire through U.S. military invasion and occupation. The American people have rejected this Neocon "Bush Doctrine," but McCain believes he he knows better than the American people.

This may be the most exquisite flip flop flip ever executed by a politician. Our very own Senator McLastInHisClass announced today that he supports comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for the 11 million already here.

Today's position is exactly the one he held in 2006. By 2010, however, he had changed his position to "complete the danged fence."

He may have just out-Romneyed Romney. And he's not even in campaign mode. I changed my mind. I hope he runs for re-election in 2016.

Village Idiot:If only. Now my father, he was a complete idiot. I'm still a half-wit."

- TV Mini-Series "The 10th Kingdom" (2000)

This is the only memorable line I ever remember from this TV show, but I am reminded of it every time I hear that village idiot Aqua Buddha, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) open his mouth and speak. The stupid, it burns.

And then there was Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican who pretends he is
a libertarian when it suits his purposes and something else when it
doesn't. No doubt thinking of his stature among tea partiers if he
actually seeks the presidency three years from now, he sent out a video
of his questioning of Clinton during which he said:

"I'm glad that you're accepting responsibility. I think
ultimately with your leaving that you accept the culpability for the
worst tragedy since 9/11. And I really mean that. Had I been president
and found you did not read the cables from Benghazi and from Ambassador
Stevens, I would have relieved you of your post. I think it's
inexcusable."

Secretary Clinton had some help with that one. Democratic Sen. Chris
Murphy of Connecticut fumed: "If some people on this committee want to
call this tragedy the worst since 9/11, it misunderstands the nature of
4,000 plus Americans lost in the War in Iraq under false pretenses."

Not to mention the tens of thousands of Iraqis who were killed as a
consequence of that concocted war. Who lost their jobs at the State
Department or anywhere else over that?

U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice has withdrawn her name from consideration to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, NBC News reports:

“If nominated, I am now convinced that the confirmation process would
be lengthy, disruptive and costly – to you and to our most pressing
national and international priorities,” Rice wrote in a letter to
President Obama, saying she’s saddened by the partisan politics
surrounding her prospects.

I was really looking forward to the tiresome act of the Neocon war monger Three Stooges -- John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman -- finally coming to an end now that Lieberman is retiring and leaving the Senate. Frick! I forgot about Shemp! Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) has replaced Lieberman in the "new" Three Stooges.

We don’t yet really know as a society what a person has to do to
completely and utterly cancel out a record of war heroism, but we may be
about to find out. If this CBS News report is even close to accurate, John McCain’s arguments of the last few weeks about Susan Rice are thrashingly demolished. He has, or should have, zero credibility
now on this issue. It will be fascinating to see if he emerges from the
holiday weekend subtly chastened, attempting to shift gears a bit, or
whether he keeps the pedal to the paranoid metal.

Arizona's angry old man Sen. McNasty, Sen. John McCain, and his puppet boy sidekick Sen. Lindsey Graham, have been leading the bizzare GOP attacks on U.N. Secretary Susan Rice that began when Willard "Mittens" Romney attempted to politicize the attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, even before it was reported that U.N. Ambassador Christopher Stevens had been killed in the attack.

Wild ass conspiracy theories surrounding the attack in Benghazi have become a staple of FAUX News Fraudcasting and other purveyors of conspiracy theories in the right-wing noise machine since the attack.

As more information has become available, the wild ass conspiracy theories of FAUX News Fraudcasting and the right-wing noise machine have been refuted time and again. The whole right-wing conspiracy mongering over Benghazi has now been reduced to one of semantics: "spontaneous" and "al Qaida."

Republican senators' criticism of U.N.
Ambassador Susan Rice over her initial account of the deadly Sept. 11
attack in Libya smacks of sexism and racism, a dozen female members of
the House said Friday. Dozen House Women Defend Rice over Libya Comments:

In unusually personal terms, the Democratic
women lashed out at Sens. John McCain and [his puppet boy] Lindsey Graham who earlier
this week called Rice unqualified and untrustworthy and promised to
scuttle her nomination if President Barack Obama nominates her to
succeed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"All of the things
they have disliked about things that have gone on in the administration,
they have never called a male unqualified, not bright, not
trustworthy," said Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, the next chairwoman of the
Congressional Black Caucus. "There is a clear sexism and racism that
goes with these comments being made by unfortunately Sen. McCain and
others."

At a Capitol Hill news conference,
the female lawmakers, the majority of them African American like Rice,
suggested that the Republicans are bitter about Obama's re-election and
taking it out on U.N. ambassador.

"To batter this woman because they don't
feel they have the ability to batter President Obama is something we the
women are not going to stand by and watch," said Rep. Gwen Moore,
D-Wis. "Their feckless and reckless speculation is unworthy of their
offices as senators."

The Democratic women directed particular ire
against McCain, who said Rice was "not being very bright" in her
comments. The women pointed out that Rice was a Rhodes scholar who
graduated tops in her Stanford University class whereas McCain was in
the bottom of his class at the U.S. Naval Academy.

In fact, the only reason John McCain ever attended the Naval Academy is because he was "legacy" pick: he received special treatment because his father and grandfather were admirals in the Navy. He thus deprived a far more qualified and deserving candidate an appointment to the Naval Academy. Johnny failed to achieve the rank of admiral because of his record of being a complete fuck-up in the Navy. He only got as far as he did because of nepotism.

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